Arkane _definitely_ don't get the love they deserve - Prey AND Dishonored 2 were both _exquisitely_ designed! (if a little flawed in places) The level design alone is second to none! One of the top 3 AAA devs in the west imo!
@The Saturnian Yeah, Prey would be much better if that threat had remained the whole way through, I love the idea of learning real strategies for defeating each different bad, but like all these "Choose your own path" RPGs the nasties have to be defeatable by ALL character builds, which nullifies the whole enemy strategy thing - I don't think ANY dev has found a real answer to this problem yet...
@@dudds6699 they've only been tasked to work on the level design of youngblood. Thats because machinegames fucked up the level design of new colossus so bad that bethesda didnt trust them for this game + they were very stressed on time. Arkane has nothing to do with the rest of the game and you can tell aha
I also love their unique visual style which is both extremely representational and beautiful and expressive. They're one of the few modern developers that has a really strong visual brand (Supergiant's another).
The shining moment of Mooncrash was getting the bleeding trauma from the shark, fleeing it and trying to keep to the mission without jumping. I had to abandon my planned exit with that character and take a prepared one I planned for someone else to use. This completely derailed my plans. And it was so much fun! Both the panicked fleeing with my bleeding character and the worry of how the heck I was going to do the objectives I needed to do that time around the simulation.
Remixing game assets to make a new game is a thing I wish more developers would do, Cause a lot of times I find myself liking the remix better (usually because they can go all out when they don't have to worry about making their money back). Majora's Mask & Blazblue Cross Tag Battle are some brilliant examples that come to mind.
It worked for Blood Dragon too, funnily enough. Also, in regards to asset remixing, I wouldn't mind if future Tomb Raider games did that, letting us play around with assets to create tombs of our own for Lara to solve. And yes, that's probably a bit more than simple "asset remixing", but it would be a good fit for the Tomb Raider franchise.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2's DLC seems like that kind of thing: it's a standalone adventure recycling many elements and refining others. I don't know how it'll turn out though, since it's not out yet.
Ali Eivazi agreed. State of decay, half life, far cry, unreal tournament (mutators, a vastly under used random factor in games), CoD and so many others hand allowed for and produced done top grade extra experiences by simply throwing time and effort into tools that already existed. OTOH we also get things like destiny 2, sports games, Star Wars:EA(battlefront after the lobotomy), far cry5 and the mass effect DLC (95% overpriced low effort trash).
It is unfortunate that there is the constant push to move to new technology for sequels. I would have been perfectly happy to see Arkane keep making DLC for the first Dishonored. But a developer gets a solid toolset and asset pipeline going and then has to ditch it for something new to justify a full-priced game. At this point, I'd say many games look good enough that they could get a lot more content out of a single game than they do. Especially in an immersive sim, where solid low-level mechanics could support a ton of different scenarios.
Yeah, like SERIOUS million of dollars worth of assets, down the latrine, every sodding time! Why!? O~O Give 'em a re-skin & remix, and try putting them in more experimental (or at least ORIGINAL!) IPs with all the readymade stuff in your back pocket, no one would mind *just so long as they didn't try to pretend it was all new assets* (which would just end up being internet drama o clock......Again)
I can't say i feel sympathy for them, even now there is still a game breaking bug in dishonored 2 near the end of the game that leaves you unable to complete it because it corrupts your save..
That's Id and Avalanche, i've heard that Arkane will have another game within the next 4 years but i wish they didn't have the future of their studio on the line for it
Mooncrash looks like you're playing as the people who would leave behind audio logs about their violent deaths in the Shock games and that alone has convinced me to try it.
I dont think Prey ever "promised" living the same day over and over again in its trailers as much as it was using that to juxtapose the pretty scenery with the creepy notion of living the same day. I never got the idea that it was gonna be a Majora's mask or a roguelike.
I'm afraid Mooncrash is a little bit to risky for a full AAA publisher funded game. Maybe we may see something like this in a bigger scope from an indie developer. Cyberpunk 2077 may have some immersive sim elements as well as being an RPG. But it would have been really cool to get a true procedurally generated rogue like with immersive sim elements and mulible characters. Imagine a FPS rogue like where the "dungeons" are procedurally generated every time you start a new game. But it's saved for that playtrough over mulible characters. And then you have a Darkest Dungeon or X-Com style recruitment system.
As much as I love the concept, I think it's best for DLC. Narratively it's a very specific setup, which requires the base game's setting (or something similar) to justify it. On top of that, it piggybacks on its environments and characters. Now you _could_ invent all of that from scratch but it's an awful lot of work for something that's a long way in the background for a roguelite game. I suspect all those things would turn out vastly inferior if they started a new IP to pursue Mooncrash's gameplay formula.
I absolutely loved this DLC. It totally reminded me of Majora’s Mask and scratched an itch I’ve had for decades. I wish there was a more full-fledged experience like this - a few hours to complete all objectives just wasn’t enough.
I love mooncrash, but the I'm still put off by that time pressure thing. IMO it should tie the increases with events done by the player not just time. Because sometimes you want to snoop around and explore for a bit. Besides that whole mechanic is negated when you discover the fabrication plans for the corruption timer reduction item. All you do is rush to kill typhon and recycle them to make it.
I don't understand how it's an issue. it would make the game too frustrating if there was no way to get some more time before increase in corruption in later runs, but it also adds a lot of pressure and tension to first hours of gameplay, before unlocking the fabrication plans.
Bethesda's regional pricing is utterly baffling. Mooncrash costs *$15* for US store, so for Indian store, going by Value's standard regional pricing for $15, should cost *Rs. 479.* Instead, it cost *Rs 1,599.* It's MORE than regional price equivalent to $50 games! *WHY DO BIG NAME PUBLISHERS MESS WITH NON-US STORE PRICING SO MUCH?!*
@@colin-campbell traditional economics don't really apply to a product where infinte copies can be made and distibuted digitally at no additional cost. It's not like the good old days where the physical discs were pressed in one country and shipped to another, with some countries being more expensive to get the product to and sell it... Edit: unless you mean it's that price simply because the market there tolerates it without a decline in sales
This is my favorite game of the year so far. The mechanics elevation in Mooncrash and the way it forces you to be creative in unexpected ways where you can even surprise yourself with your own inventiveness is astounding. My standout moment was when I was playing as the Security Officer and he was the last guy I had to escape with. I was at Corruption Level 5 and completely out of ammo, stuck on the top level of Pytheas Labs with Telepaths, elemental Phantoms, and Corrupted Operators outside. With one deep breath, I decided to sprint at full force through the shitstorm of Typhon and kept chucking any furniture I could find at them with Leverage III as I sonic'd my way to the tram station. It was the most chaotic and tense moment in all of Mooncrash. And I escaped!! Such a cool game with an amazing concept.
It's such a novel idea that fits the immersive sim genre so well I'm surprised it hasn't really been done before. My problem with games like dishonoured and deus ex is even though there are alot of different options in moving from A to B, they all seem like choosing between variations of the same action (especially since upgrades and abilities often railroad you into one style of play each runthrough). Mooncrash encourages/forces you to think about what impacts these actions and playstyles really have and how they can interact with subsequent escapes on the same run. Planning out how I wanted to approach each run based on what each of my characters could do well and the layout of the base that (while somewhat varied to keep you adapting) I had grown to learn the layout and connected...ness of, was a real treat. I hope more larger games take creative risks like this in hopes of teasing out new evolutions of existing genres.
Streets of Rogue is a fun little rogue-like sim that gives you a bunch of classes to choose from. And all the classes you can pick, thief, comedian, doctor, etc., can be found in the games world interacting with it, and each other, accordingly. Thieves will pickpocket commoners, police will chase those thieves, store owners chase thieves out of shops... I like playing as a thief, okay? You really get a sense of how the world operates the longer you play :)
I adore these sorts of dungeon games. Not the "you get better with each run simply because you unlocked the thing" part of it, but the "you learn a bit with each run so you can make a tighter, better composed effort at completing every mission". In a way, it's a speedrun mindset while solving a complex, multi character puzzle at the same time. It's a shame there's no in-game option that enforces the purity of having to make do with just the resources on the map and the creativity of how to put each to the best use.
Good video; I found it interesting that you got fabrication plans for the Artax system and for the Delay Loop item. I finished Mooncrash without ever being able to fabricate them, and I'm wondering if that contributed to my game still being tense up until the last moment. I finished my 5/5 run with a bleeding, burned Riley after some surprising encounters, hiding (behind a locked door) from a dang medical operator. I did a whoop and a fist pump for that one. Definitely one of my top gaming experiences!
I don't understand the notion that RPG systems in immersive sims were stripped back due to the limitations of console controllers, given that RPG mechanics were already common on consoles and things like inventories and skill trees work fine on controllers. I've also heard it claimed that controllers were the reason FPS games began limiting players to carrying only two weapons at once, which also makes no sense given that both early and more recent console FPS games let players switch between 8+ weapons on the fly. Doom Eternal has a more complex control scheme than most classic FPS games, with like 10 weapons that have two togglable alt-fires, two togglable grenade types, and other actions like dashes, yet it's likely sold more on console than PC. Anyway in regards to player expression, it might not be very immersive but some games just outright score you on the diversity of your tactics, like Devil May Cry, to an extent at least. Immersive sims could always just try doing that. Dishonored already scores you on things like how sneaky you were and how much treasure you collected in a level, but this seems kinda strange to me because it just pushes you towards a stealthy, completionist playstyle instead of encouraging you to be creative. I mean I guess it's aping Thief, but Thief was a dedicated stealth game and in Dishonored it's just supposed to be one option among many.
I would have liked it if instead of money, the loadout screen had a fixed number of items you could equip before a run that was shared between characters. Like you have a pistol, a shotgun, 3 medkits, etc. (with more unlocked as you find fabrication plans) that you can give to a character when you select them. However, these items aren't restocked until you start a new run, so you have to decide if you want to give all the medkits to a weaker character, wait until later to give them to the last character you send out, try to distribute them evenly, etc. That way you can have a bit of leniency and can prepare for runs without being able to stockpile enough credits and items to make a run a breeze.
I sat down and made my top 25 games of all time list with a one game per franchise rule. Prey made it in. Which means it's incredibly underrated. Top 5 best level designs in all of gaming history.
I am honestly surprised that more games haven't been produced on this concept of replaying the same game from different character's perspectives. Star Ocean 2 was the last game that did this that I found at all memorable. Unfortunately in that game's case, the illusion broke down very easily if you knew about the events of the other character and tried to go to them (everything played out as if you were that other character). So each time you replay it, you can't help but wish you could experience that game it hinted at but just wasn't.
One of my favorite mechanics in this game was the Typhon gates. Unlike the original game, it gave a real punishment for progressing down typhon upgrades. Unfortunately, they did give players an easy solution, which is to use the stun gun or electric shock abilities to short out the gates, as well as being able to dig under them with the dig ability. This is obviously to prevent players from getting stuck *however* it is actually possible to complete the whole game without these mechanics with all characters (except Vijay) having maxed out typhon abilities through very clever manipulation of power to various sectors, and use of the trams and typhon abilities. I would highly suggest trying this yourself, as figuring out how to make this run work without bypassing typhon gates is quite a puzzle in itself.
14:25 But class specialization allowed tons of replayability if devs accounted for that. E.g. look at Fallout 2. While classless you get to see most of the content in single go.
I have to say I'm only sad that I only just got to playing Prey and Mooncrash and it pains me that not only was I late to support the developer sales but I loved both so much that the notion that games like these and potential sequels might not be a thing at least for the foreseeable future. I guess it's a pretty high note to end on, hopefully Psychonauts 2 will set a good example for cult classics and Prey will join that category of games with a fan base that doesn't start large but grows over time.
The resurgence of immersive sims might be dying down, but the new vampire the masquerades has been announced and its looking like it’ll incorporate some of the classic 0451 staples so there’s some hope
Have you played Rain World? Pretty much what you described where Mooncrash was at its best when you had the least amount of tools to play with but for the entire game. It's thrilling.
Glad you've found time to do these neat videos! If you like space simcades, I'd love to hear your take on the differences between Elite, No man's sky, and star citizen. I don't know if there is much there, but I find your characteristic eye for mechanics very insightful.
Surprised I never really hear people refer to Prey, and Mooncrash, as a kinda Metroidvania. There's a lot of "sequence breaking" with the GLOO Cannon and other multipurpose abilities, multiple pathways and shortcuts through a cohesive world map (including the spaceship exterior in the main game), and a lot of backtracking to areas that are re-contextualised on your next visit. There's even scan logs! Just felt like mentioning that.
Prey did feel somewhat derivative, but in a good way, if that makes sense. It's been a long time since a game captured the feeling of System Shock 2 as well as it has. Dishonored to me (admittedly I need to play more), didn't really feel the same, even though it has systems reminiscent of it. I think I played it at exactly the right time, because I had a really strong urge to replay SS2, but decided to play Prey instead, and it scratched so many itches that I was having.
People keep saying that System Shock had RPG elements, but really it was only SS2 that introduced those. SS1 had upgrades found in the environment that could all be installed - really more of a Metroidvania precursor. It's also waaaaaay heavier on the backtracking than almost any game in the genre besides, well, Prey. I LOVE System Shock 1. More than 2, more than almost any other ImSim, and I was delighted that it felt like Prey was taking a lot of cues from there specifically - backtracking, six degrees of freedom, etc.
When the original campaign (and it's predecessors like shock) have you repair a station system, it's just another static fetch quest. Here there is a glimpse of procedural station degradation that rewards your station knowledge. I guess what I want is complexity somewhere between Mooncrash and Space Station 13.
Honestly, I think the ability to buy big-ticket items like Delay.Loop_Time is less disruptive than the fact that you can really cheaply buy basic items like ammo and medkits. I found I could buy a pistol (or two, to account for weapon degradation), a half-dozen medkits, and a giant stack of ammo, and then just run-and-gun the whole game. Yeah, the security guy is better at running-and-gunning than the volunteer, but the volunteer is good enough. Given the impact of the corruption mechanic, the question of whether a strategy was fast mattered more than whether the character was specialized in it. As I result, I think I experienced the same flaws in the game you did, but starting much earlier in the experience. I enjoyed it well enough, and it's good to see innovative remixing of mechanics. But that premission load-out screen REALLY needed to be rebalanced.
A very well done review. For those concerned with the time limit, it is very easy to reverse engineer and construct your own delay time items ingame to keep the timer in check. Though I personally felt it takes away from the game like he implied. Also if you have the game on PC, keep in mind there are mods that take away the game over time limit here (ignoring the condescending title) www.nexusmods.com/prey2017/mods/34?tab=posts and one that takes away the loop time abuse and makes it harder (www.nexusmods.com/prey2017/mods/32).
My only real issue with Mooncrash is that they made some of the characters way too powerful. Get half of Vijay's upgrades, buy him two shotguns at the start as well as 160 shells and you're essentially the Slayer from DOOM to the point where there's nothing that can stand up to you. Everything in the game can be dodged by him since he starts with the jetpack, and nothing can get away from your shotguns since you can just dash up to them.
I backed Underworld Ascendant in 2015 and it's finally coming out in a few months. I have barely any idea of what kind of game it's going to be apart from "Immersive sim!" but I hope it breathes some new life into this vague genre. I don't know if you'd be interested in covering it but I'd sure as heck be interested in watching a video on it made by you.
Cyberpunk 2077 looks to have a lot of immersive sim inspirations, especially from deus ex, so I wouldn't say the genre is dead, espicially since Cyberpunk is the most ambitious of all previous games, heck even more ambitious than most open world games etc.
Yeah this game is very underated and I've enjoyed this game so much I always look forward to booting this up and checking area for the 5th time but discovering that I missed something completely useful just so many times it's happened and just leave thinking and figuring out Solutions game have so much enjoyment just think of it and not to the point where it drives you crazy still very awesome game and deserve to sequel without a doubt because this game is just extremely fun
oh man thats awesome. I really really really enjoyed prey. unfortunately I'm kinda done (and never was a huge fan to begin with) with the whole rougle like phenomena so I won't try it. but I'm glad to hear it's actually good.
Sounds a bit like a split-character metroidvania. Where rather than a single character developing all of the skillsets, the skills which open different areas of the map, are spread across different characters.
Looking back, Mooncrash's "find a way to escape in every way with every character" structure feels like a precursor to Deathloop's "find the perfect run to kill every boss in one go" structure.
I kind of lump it in with Knife of Dunwall since it was the second part of Daud's story which I kind of look at as one thing, but yeah, Brigmore Witches is also ace.
This game should have been called NEURO SHOCK: Lunacrash/Lunar Orbit/Not Prey 2/Isolation(will SEGA sue us?)/Most definitively not Prey 2/System Failure...that is all. So sad!!!
I loved this DLC, but once I got the fabricator plans to produce as many corruption resets as I wanted, it basically broke the game by taking away all time pressure. I wish they made it way more expensive so it was less tempting to use.
They shortened the endgame? I wouldn't have minded a gruelling gauntlet through Zero-G against the Typhons it was WAY too easy to just jet your way to the end without even conflicting with them, the only part of the game I found very tedious in this ramped difficulty regard is the part near the reactor with all the stairs broken, in order to speed through it you have to use the GLOO cannon very creatively otherwise it's way too many strong enemies in way too small a space.
Mooncrash's biggest mistake was letting me reset the sim whenever I wanted. I only high level corruption *extremely rarely*. I only got to the last level once, and that was on purpose. Very few objectives actually require more than one character Also: Yikes, that male version of semi sacred geometry is way worse than the ingame version
I've got to say, as a player who would dump the corruption mechanic like a sack of rotten potatoes, I'm really sick of people who piss and moan about having options like that. Don't advocate taking away other people's opinions because you're too weak willed to play the way you say is best.
I think these games are incredibly hard to run a full dev cycle off profitability. Large areas, complex systems, varied approaches, story, exploration, depth. All add up to a game that could be amazing but are often fundamentally flawed in one area that lets the overall experience lacking. Be it theme issues, easily exploited gameplay, a broken/unwieldily in game system or simply too many bugs to make the experience playable/enjoyable. Skyrim is only partially playable through its (poor, seriously they need to make asset conflict management much better) implementation of mods. Most other titles never get that option (e.g. the static map and poor base option in state of decay that cripple the camper van mode and the games replay value.
By contrast, building extra features into a known flexible engine/game can turn a barely functional game weighed down by terrible systems can net you some serious profit (fortnite).
I understand your point, but are you not complaining about things in the game to make it more accessible? Like adding color blind modes in your game. Making the content you don't like a button in a menu isn't that different thna just not using it.
I feel like I'd rather just play Mooncrash than Prey. It's way more my type of game than Prey. But you need to buy Prey ($45AU) and then also buy Mooncrash ($30AU) if you just want Mooncrash. Oh well.
I'm not being stupid when I say that him saying "rouge-lite" is wrong, right? It should be "rouge-like" because it's like Rouge, or am I missing something here?
No, a "Rogue-Lite" is a sub-sub-genre. Roguelikes have hard resets between runs, taking their cues from the ascii dungeon crawler game "Rogue." Rogue lites are a more recent trend popularized by "Rogue Legacy," where even though death is permanent, every run is likely to make future runs a little easier. There are probably nitpicks about that definition - some people think that only ascii games are roguelikes to begin with - but that's pretty much what he means. He's complained about the format on Twitter before.
That seems a bit silly, since Rouge-like already means the same, it is like it, it isn't exactly like it though, saying it's somewhat like it but not quite like it so it needs a different work seems pedantic to me, but whatever, if you really feel the need to have a different word for it, who am I to judge.
While rogue-like is sometimes used to refer both to the more traditional ascii aesthetic turn based perma death dungeon crawlers with complex systems, and also to the games that are a combination of some other genre with rogue-like elements, those two groups are quite clearly distinct. Sure there's some overlap, but if you look at a few games of both kinds it's clear that those are two separate clusters, so there are two names, that's all there is to it. Oh, the fanbase being overly pedantic thing is actually totally true though. You should look up something called 'the Berlin interpretation'.
It has been a long time since a you tube video successfully sold me on a video game. I would have liked to see an affiliate link, but totally appreciate many reasons that could explain it not being there.
I'd be really interested to see your reaction to their full slate of games: where they sometimes use the same systems but with completely different details and focuses, how they present history (or tropes of the medium for Stellaris) without direct judgement in some cases, but give you the tools to make that judgement yourself, how they dramatically alter the core gameplay of their games over time, etc. There's a lot to talk about, the main problem would be having to play several versions of several games several times, each for at least a dozen hours. And then there's buying all that dlc...
Arkane _definitely_ don't get the love they deserve - Prey AND Dishonored 2 were both _exquisitely_ designed! (if a little flawed in places) The level design alone is second to none!
One of the top 3 AAA devs in the west imo!
I had a great time with Prey, and I definitely noticed some Metroidvania elements in the world design!
@The Saturnian Yeah,
Prey would be much better if that threat had remained the whole way through,
I love the idea of learning real strategies for defeating each different bad, but like all these "Choose your own path" RPGs the nasties have to be defeatable by ALL character builds, which nullifies the whole enemy strategy thing - I don't think ANY dev has found a real answer to this problem yet...
I kinda like youngblood as well.
@@dudds6699 they've only been tasked to work on the level design of youngblood. Thats because machinegames fucked up the level design of new colossus so bad that bethesda didnt trust them for this game + they were very stressed on time. Arkane has nothing to do with the rest of the game and you can tell aha
I also love their unique visual style which is both extremely representational and beautiful and expressive. They're one of the few modern developers that has a really strong visual brand (Supergiant's another).
Arkane suffering from the same problems Respawn had with Titalfall 2.
Incredible groundbreaking games, almos no one cared.
The shining moment of Mooncrash was getting the bleeding trauma from the shark, fleeing it and trying to keep to the mission without jumping. I had to abandon my planned exit with that character and take a prepared one I planned for someone else to use. This completely derailed my plans.
And it was so much fun!
Both the panicked fleeing with my bleeding character and the worry of how the heck I was going to do the objectives I needed to do that time around the simulation.
Remixing game assets to make a new game is a thing I wish more developers would do, Cause a lot of times I find myself liking the remix better (usually because they can go all out when they don't have to worry about making their money back). Majora's Mask & Blazblue Cross Tag Battle are some brilliant examples that come to mind.
It worked for Blood Dragon too, funnily enough.
Also, in regards to asset remixing, I wouldn't mind if future Tomb Raider games did that, letting us play around with assets to create tombs of our own for Lara to solve. And yes, that's probably a bit more than simple "asset remixing", but it would be a good fit for the Tomb Raider franchise.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2's DLC seems like that kind of thing: it's a standalone adventure recycling many elements and refining others. I don't know how it'll turn out though, since it's not out yet.
Ali Eivazi agreed.
State of decay, half life, far cry, unreal tournament (mutators, a vastly under used random factor in games), CoD and so many others hand allowed for and produced done top grade extra experiences by simply throwing time and effort into tools that already existed.
OTOH we also get things like destiny 2, sports games, Star Wars:EA(battlefront after the lobotomy), far cry5 and the mass effect DLC (95% overpriced low effort trash).
It is unfortunate that there is the constant push to move to new technology for sequels. I would have been perfectly happy to see Arkane keep making DLC for the first Dishonored. But a developer gets a solid toolset and asset pipeline going and then has to ditch it for something new to justify a full-priced game. At this point, I'd say many games look good enough that they could get a lot more content out of a single game than they do. Especially in an immersive sim, where solid low-level mechanics could support a ton of different scenarios.
Yeah, like SERIOUS million of dollars worth of assets, down the latrine, every sodding time! Why!? O~O
Give 'em a re-skin & remix, and try putting them in more experimental (or at least ORIGINAL!) IPs with all the readymade stuff in your back pocket, no one would mind
*just so long as they didn't try to pretend it was all new assets* (which would just end up being internet drama o clock......Again)
God i wish Arkane wasn't in Financial Troubles over the underwhelming sales of Dishonored 2 and Prey
I can't say i feel sympathy for them, even now there is still a game breaking bug in dishonored 2 near the end of the game that leaves you unable to complete it because it corrupts your save..
Hence Forth what is this bug?
Arkane has a great talent for making good games and completely bungling their release.
Right, but Zenimax will at some point intervene and disallow Arkane from making the kinds of games they want to make.
That's Id and Avalanche, i've heard that Arkane will have another game within the next 4 years but i wish they didn't have the future of their studio on the line for it
Just finished Mooncrash, what an unique experience, I liked it even more than the base game.
RIP Arkane Austin.
The more time passes the more I praise Prey
If you have a PC it's worth checking out the original Prey (2005) as well - It's a pretty enjoyable trip!
Mooncrash looks like you're playing as the people who would leave behind audio logs about their violent deaths in the Shock games and that alone has convinced me to try it.
I dont think Prey ever "promised" living the same day over and over again in its trailers as much as it was using that to juxtapose the pretty scenery with the creepy notion of living the same day. I never got the idea that it was gonna be a Majora's mask or a roguelike.
Yeah, exactly. It didn't promise a gameplay loop --it promised a premise. And that promise was fulfilled.
Mooncrash is definitely a concept worth pursuing further, be it in a Prey sequel or its own new IP...
I'm afraid Mooncrash is a little bit to risky for a full AAA publisher funded game. Maybe we may see something like this in a bigger scope from an indie developer. Cyberpunk 2077 may have some immersive sim elements as well as being an RPG. But it would have been really cool to get a true procedurally generated rogue like with immersive sim elements and mulible characters. Imagine a FPS rogue like where the "dungeons" are procedurally generated every time you start a new game. But it's saved for that playtrough over mulible characters. And then you have a Darkest Dungeon or X-Com style recruitment system.
It is a mechanic I'd also like to see in a different genre. There are interesting RPG and adventure ideas in there.
Honestly, just kill the Prey name forever and I’d be willing to give a Mooncrash series a chance.
As much as I love the concept, I think it's best for DLC. Narratively it's a very specific setup, which requires the base game's setting (or something similar) to justify it. On top of that, it piggybacks on its environments and characters. Now you _could_ invent all of that from scratch but it's an awful lot of work for something that's a long way in the background for a roguelite game. I suspect all those things would turn out vastly inferior if they started a new IP to pursue Mooncrash's gameplay formula.
...and along came Deathloop.
I absolutely loved this DLC. It totally reminded me of Majora’s Mask and scratched an itch I’ve had for decades. I wish there was a more full-fledged experience like this - a few hours to complete all objectives just wasn’t enough.
I love mooncrash, but the I'm still put off by that time pressure thing. IMO it should tie the increases with events done by the player not just time. Because sometimes you want to snoop around and explore for a bit.
Besides that whole mechanic is negated when you discover the fabrication plans for the corruption timer reduction item. All you do is rush to kill typhon and recycle them to make it.
I don't understand how it's an issue. it would make the game too frustrating if there was no way to get some more time before increase in corruption in later runs, but it also adds a lot of pressure and tension to first hours of gameplay, before unlocking the fabrication plans.
Bethesda's regional pricing is utterly baffling.
Mooncrash costs *$15* for US store, so for Indian store, going by Value's standard regional pricing for $15, should cost *Rs. 479.* Instead, it cost *Rs 1,599.*
It's MORE than regional price equivalent to $50 games!
*WHY DO BIG NAME PUBLISHERS MESS WITH NON-US STORE PRICING SO MUCH?!*
Hemang Chauhan government tax
Buy it on a legitimate 3rd party site that gives steam keys like Humble Bundle or Fanatical or somethin'.
Looks like no one passed economics 101 in this thread.
@@colin-campbell traditional economics don't really apply to a product where infinte copies can be made and distibuted digitally at no additional cost. It's not like the good old days where the physical discs were pressed in one country and shipped to another, with some countries being more expensive to get the product to and sell it...
Edit: unless you mean it's that price simply because the market there tolerates it without a decline in sales
John Chronic
🤦🏻♂️
Needless to say, it's been a while since there's been such an amazing bit of single-player DLC. Not a lot of those around these days...
This is my favorite game of the year so far. The mechanics elevation in Mooncrash and the way it forces you to be creative in unexpected ways where you can even surprise yourself with your own inventiveness is astounding. My standout moment was when I was playing as the Security Officer and he was the last guy I had to escape with. I was at Corruption Level 5 and completely out of ammo, stuck on the top level of Pytheas Labs with Telepaths, elemental Phantoms, and Corrupted Operators outside. With one deep breath, I decided to sprint at full force through the shitstorm of Typhon and kept chucking any furniture I could find at them with Leverage III as I sonic'd my way to the tram station. It was the most chaotic and tense moment in all of Mooncrash. And I escaped!! Such a cool game with an amazing concept.
It's such a novel idea that fits the immersive sim genre so well I'm surprised it hasn't really been done before. My problem with games like dishonoured and deus ex is even though there are alot of different options in moving from A to B, they all seem like choosing between variations of the same action (especially since upgrades and abilities often railroad you into one style of play each runthrough). Mooncrash encourages/forces you to think about what impacts these actions and playstyles really have and how they can interact with subsequent escapes on the same run. Planning out how I wanted to approach each run based on what each of my characters could do well and the layout of the base that (while somewhat varied to keep you adapting) I had grown to learn the layout and connected...ness of, was a real treat. I hope more larger games take creative risks like this in hopes of teasing out new evolutions of existing genres.
Streets of Rogue is a fun little rogue-like sim that gives you a bunch of classes to choose from. And all the classes you can pick, thief, comedian, doctor, etc., can be found in the games world interacting with it, and each other, accordingly. Thieves will pickpocket commoners, police will chase those thieves, store owners chase thieves out of shops... I like playing as a thief, okay? You really get a sense of how the world operates the longer you play :)
Dishonored 2 - GREAT game TERRIBLE name ruining launch
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - GREAT gameplay Terrible chopped liver story / characters O~O
I adore these sorts of dungeon games. Not the "you get better with each run simply because you unlocked the thing" part of it, but the "you learn a bit with each run so you can make a tighter, better composed effort at completing every mission". In a way, it's a speedrun mindset while solving a complex, multi character puzzle at the same time. It's a shame there's no in-game option that enforces the purity of having to make do with just the resources on the map and the creativity of how to put each to the best use.
Good video; I found it interesting that you got fabrication plans for the Artax system and for the Delay Loop item. I finished Mooncrash without ever being able to fabricate them, and I'm wondering if that contributed to my game still being tense up until the last moment. I finished my 5/5 run with a bleeding, burned Riley after some surprising encounters, hiding (behind a locked door) from a dang medical operator. I did a whoop and a fist pump for that one. Definitely one of my top gaming experiences!
4:12 That scene from Apollo 13 was shown to me in school and was my introduction and spark towards my engineering career.
I feel like Arkane's new upcoming game "Death Loop" is building on Mooncrash.
Yeah, but with the powers and mechanics of Dishonored by the looks of it. So keen for it!
All I know is Joan Winslow has 2 shotguns, 20 spare parts, and 800 goddamn rounds of buckshot.
It's an Immersive sim. My rounds will be immersing themselves into the enemy.
Mooncrash was one of my favorite games in recent memory. I really hope that we will see this style of game again in the future.
I don't understand the notion that RPG systems in immersive sims were stripped back due to the limitations of console controllers, given that RPG mechanics were already common on consoles and things like inventories and skill trees work fine on controllers. I've also heard it claimed that controllers were the reason FPS games began limiting players to carrying only two weapons at once, which also makes no sense given that both early and more recent console FPS games let players switch between 8+ weapons on the fly.
Doom Eternal has a more complex control scheme than most classic FPS games, with like 10 weapons that have two togglable alt-fires, two togglable grenade types, and other actions like dashes, yet it's likely sold more on console than PC.
Anyway in regards to player expression, it might not be very immersive but some games just outright score you on the diversity of your tactics, like Devil May Cry, to an extent at least. Immersive sims could always just try doing that. Dishonored already scores you on things like how sneaky you were and how much treasure you collected in a level, but this seems kinda strange to me because it just pushes you towards a stealthy, completionist playstyle instead of encouraging you to be creative. I mean I guess it's aping Thief, but Thief was a dedicated stealth game and in Dishonored it's just supposed to be one option among many.
Easily best expansion/ DLC of 2018 so far, can only recommend to everyone (and main game too!).
I would have liked it if instead of money, the loadout screen had a fixed number of items you could equip before a run that was shared between characters.
Like you have a pistol, a shotgun, 3 medkits, etc. (with more unlocked as you find fabrication plans) that you can give to a character when you select them. However, these items aren't restocked until you start a new run, so you have to decide if you want to give all the medkits to a weaker character, wait until later to give them to the last character you send out, try to distribute them evenly, etc. That way you can have a bit of leniency and can prepare for runs without being able to stockpile enough credits and items to make a run a breeze.
I sat down and made my top 25 games of all time list with a one game per franchise rule. Prey made it in. Which means it's incredibly underrated. Top 5 best level designs in all of gaming history.
Thank god for IO Interactive and Arkane for continuing the development of immersive sims, even the face of harsh sales.
Hear Hear!
I am honestly surprised that more games haven't been produced on this concept of replaying the same game from different character's perspectives. Star Ocean 2 was the last game that did this that I found at all memorable. Unfortunately in that game's case, the illusion broke down very easily if you knew about the events of the other character and tried to go to them (everything played out as if you were that other character). So each time you replay it, you can't help but wish you could experience that game it hinted at but just wasn't.
One of my favorite mechanics in this game was the Typhon gates. Unlike the original game, it gave a real punishment for progressing down typhon upgrades. Unfortunately, they did give players an easy solution, which is to use the stun gun or electric shock abilities to short out the gates, as well as being able to dig under them with the dig ability.
This is obviously to prevent players from getting stuck *however* it is actually possible to complete the whole game without these mechanics with all characters (except Vijay) having maxed out typhon abilities through very clever manipulation of power to various sectors, and use of the trams and typhon abilities. I would highly suggest trying this yourself, as figuring out how to make this run work without bypassing typhon gates is quite a puzzle in itself.
Looks really neat, congrats to the devs for making something interesting.
14:25 But class specialization allowed tons of replayability if devs accounted for that. E.g. look at Fallout 2. While classless you get to see most of the content in single go.
He is talking about the way immersive sims lets you solve problems
I never would have even thought about teleporting into the air to drop stab people.
I have to say I'm only sad that I only just got to playing Prey and Mooncrash and it pains me that not only was I late to support the developer sales but I loved both so much that the notion that games like these and potential sequels might not be a thing at least for the foreseeable future. I guess it's a pretty high note to end on, hopefully Psychonauts 2 will set a good example for cult classics and Prey will join that category of games with a fan base that doesn't start large but grows over time.
Nothing better to get ready for a super early work shift to. Hell yeah
A beautiful and badass DLC for one of the best immersive sims I've ever played. I thoroughly enjoyed Mooncrash. ^_^
The resurgence of immersive sims might be dying down, but the new vampire the masquerades has been announced and its looking like it’ll incorporate some of the classic 0451 staples so there’s some hope
Thank you for your critique. As always, I enjoy you and what you write about. I'll be purchasing this now.
Have you played Rain World? Pretty much what you described where Mooncrash was at its best when you had the least amount of tools to play with but for the entire game. It's thrilling.
rain world is beautiful. if you like this channel you should probably check it out.
Glad you've found time to do these neat videos! If you like space simcades, I'd love to hear your take on the differences between Elite, No man's sky, and star citizen. I don't know if there is much there, but I find your characteristic eye for mechanics very insightful.
Surprised I never really hear people refer to Prey, and Mooncrash, as a kinda Metroidvania. There's a lot of "sequence breaking" with the GLOO Cannon and other multipurpose abilities, multiple pathways and shortcuts through a cohesive world map (including the spaceship exterior in the main game), and a lot of backtracking to areas that are re-contextualised on your next visit. There's even scan logs!
Just felt like mentioning that.
Prey did feel somewhat derivative, but in a good way, if that makes sense. It's been a long time since a game captured the feeling of System Shock 2 as well as it has. Dishonored to me (admittedly I need to play more), didn't really feel the same, even though it has systems reminiscent of it. I think I played it at exactly the right time, because I had a really strong urge to replay SS2, but decided to play Prey instead, and it scratched so many itches that I was having.
The story was utter shite tho
“It’s great! When it’s not stupid but you know…could be better…but man it’s good, kinda.”
People keep saying that System Shock had RPG elements, but really it was only SS2 that introduced those. SS1 had upgrades found in the environment that could all be installed - really more of a Metroidvania precursor. It's also waaaaaay heavier on the backtracking than almost any game in the genre besides, well, Prey.
I LOVE System Shock 1. More than 2, more than almost any other ImSim, and I was delighted that it felt like Prey was taking a lot of cues from there specifically - backtracking, six degrees of freedom, etc.
When the original campaign (and it's predecessors like shock) have you repair a station system, it's just another static fetch quest. Here there is a glimpse of procedural station degradation that rewards your station knowledge. I guess what I want is complexity somewhere between Mooncrash and Space Station 13.
Just finished this DLC. Loved it!
YASS. I've been waiting for more immersive sim talk. I think I've exhausted everything on TH-cam. Here's something: Consortium: The Tower...?
Honestly, I think the ability to buy big-ticket items like Delay.Loop_Time is less disruptive than the fact that you can really cheaply buy basic items like ammo and medkits. I found I could buy a pistol (or two, to account for weapon degradation), a half-dozen medkits, and a giant stack of ammo, and then just run-and-gun the whole game. Yeah, the security guy is better at running-and-gunning than the volunteer, but the volunteer is good enough. Given the impact of the corruption mechanic, the question of whether a strategy was fast mattered more than whether the character was specialized in it.
As I result, I think I experienced the same flaws in the game you did, but starting much earlier in the experience. I enjoyed it well enough, and it's good to see innovative remixing of mechanics. But that premission load-out screen REALLY needed to be rebalanced.
A very well done review. For those concerned with the time limit, it is very easy to reverse engineer and construct your own delay time items ingame to keep the timer in check. Though I personally felt it takes away from the game like he implied. Also if you have the game on PC, keep in mind there are mods that take away the game over time limit here (ignoring the condescending title) www.nexusmods.com/prey2017/mods/34?tab=posts and one that takes away the loop time abuse and makes it harder (www.nexusmods.com/prey2017/mods/32).
This will be a cool game to see speedruns of.
This almost sounds like invisible inc meets prey
My only real issue with Mooncrash is that they made some of the characters way too powerful. Get half of Vijay's upgrades, buy him two shotguns at the start as well as 160 shells and you're essentially the Slayer from DOOM to the point where there's nothing that can stand up to you. Everything in the game can be dodged by him since he starts with the jetpack, and nothing can get away from your shotguns since you can just dash up to them.
Dishonored 2 is my absolute favorite game.
man its so sad prey and dishonored 2 didnt sell well both excellent games.I guess no more immersive sims :(
Isn't Warren Spector still working on System Shock 3?
(fingers crossed)
@@zetetick395 who knows
Dishonored 2 doesn't sell well
Ghost Recon Wildlands sells a ton
Good god this world, will it ever make sense?? O~O
mooncrash seemed like a really neat concept, but for me the corruption timer ruined the entire experience so I stopped playing a few hours in.
I backed Underworld Ascendant in 2015 and it's finally coming out in a few months.
I have barely any idea of what kind of game it's going to be apart from "Immersive sim!" but I hope it breathes some new life into this vague genre.
I don't know if you'd be interested in covering it but I'd sure as heck be interested in watching a video on it made by you.
WHAT WAS THAT SONG IN THE BEGINNING I FUCKING LOVE IT
I love your work, chris.
I send the engineer in first always. Tough enough to handle the moonshark with turrets and repair passages for the rest of the gang.
Interesting concept. Thanks for explaining it so clearly - it definitely not for me.
Excellent video as always.
Cyberpunk 2077 looks to have a lot of immersive sim inspirations, especially from deus ex, so I wouldn't say the genre is dead, espicially since Cyberpunk is the most ambitious of all previous games, heck even more ambitious than most open world games etc.
I think that a way to fix the "shop" issue would be to only allow you to use it on the beginning of an instance, not in any character.
I absolutely loved Mooncrash. Only downside is the ending where you can't keep playing.
Yeah this game is very underated and I've enjoyed this game so much I always look forward to booting this up and checking area for the 5th time but discovering that I missed something completely useful just so many times it's happened and just leave thinking and figuring out Solutions game have so much enjoyment just think of it and not to the point where it drives you crazy still very awesome game and deserve to sequel without a doubt because this game is just extremely fun
A lot of the what you said reminds me of the way Risk of Rain handles roguelite. Guess I'm picking this up to hold me over until RoR2.
oh man thats awesome. I really really really enjoyed prey. unfortunately I'm kinda done (and never was a huge fan to begin with) with the whole rougle like phenomena so I won't try it. but I'm glad to hear it's actually good.
This is a DLC done right. Instant buy!
Sounds a bit like a split-character metroidvania. Where rather than a single character developing all of the skillsets, the skills which open different areas of the map, are spread across different characters.
love your videos, keep making them please.
Hoping the new cyperpunk game will take the best parts of immersive sims and blend them with an open world well!
Anyone else feel like they're in a dream on the edge of inspiration?
I loved Prey, but sadly I can’t enjoy Mooncrash DLC because time pressure based mechanics make me too anxcious, I just don’t enjoy them.
Looking back, Mooncrash's "find a way to escape in every way with every character" structure feels like a precursor to Deathloop's "find the perfect run to kill every boss in one go" structure.
Why wasn't Brigmore Witches on the positive DLC list? It's ending was so satisfying.
I kind of lump it in with Knife of Dunwall since it was the second part of Daud's story which I kind of look at as one thing, but yeah, Brigmore Witches is also ace.
fair enough
Heh, this kind of gameplay mechanic reminded me of Martian Gothic 😌
This game should have been called NEURO SHOCK: Lunacrash/Lunar Orbit/Not Prey 2/Isolation(will SEGA sue us?)/Most definitively not Prey 2/System Failure...that is all. So sad!!!
I am a HUGE fan of Arkane's games
I am still on my way to play MoonCrash, but oh boi do their games are amazing
Mooncrash is awesome.
Love Prey.
I loved this DLC, but once I got the fabricator plans to produce as many corruption resets as I wanted, it basically broke the game by taking away all time pressure. I wish they made it way more expensive so it was less tempting to use.
I'm hoping that Cyberpunk 2077 is going to have immersive sim elements as well as being an RPG.
this what the game should've been from the start
Woah they made DLC for prey?? WTF this completely went under the radar...
Wait a second, today IS March 15th Monday, but 2021
They shortened the endgame? I wouldn't have minded a gruelling gauntlet through Zero-G against the Typhons it was WAY too easy to just jet your way to the end without even conflicting with them, the only part of the game I found very tedious in this ramped difficulty regard is the part near the reactor with all the stairs broken, in order to speed through it you have to use the GLOO cannon very creatively otherwise it's way too many strong enemies in way too small a space.
imho they should have first released this dlc and then the main game.
Mooncrash's biggest mistake was letting me reset the sim whenever I wanted. I only high level corruption *extremely rarely*. I only got to the last level once, and that was on purpose. Very few objectives actually require more than one character
Also: Yikes, that male version of semi sacred geometry is way worse than the ingame version
i liked the DLC, but it's just sad we dind't got more new weapons and typhoons.
If game gets easier the longer you play the devs should play Megaman to the end.
I've got to say, as a player who would dump the corruption mechanic like a sack of rotten potatoes, I'm really sick of people who piss and moan about having options like that. Don't advocate taking away other people's opinions because you're too weak willed to play the way you say is best.
You should probably complain about the PragerU ad I had to watch before your video.
I think these games are incredibly hard to run a full dev cycle off profitability.
Large areas, complex systems, varied approaches, story, exploration, depth.
All add up to a game that could be amazing but are often fundamentally flawed in one area that lets the overall experience lacking. Be it theme issues, easily exploited gameplay, a broken/unwieldily in game system or simply too many bugs to make the experience playable/enjoyable.
Skyrim is only partially playable through its (poor, seriously they need to make asset conflict management much better) implementation of mods. Most other titles never get that option (e.g. the static map and poor base option in state of decay that cripple the camper van mode and the games replay value.
By contrast, building extra features into a known flexible engine/game can turn a barely functional game weighed down by terrible systems can net you some serious profit (fortnite).
I understand your point, but are you not complaining about things in the game to make it more accessible? Like adding color blind modes in your game. Making the content you don't like a button in a menu isn't that different thna just not using it.
I feel like I'd rather just play Mooncrash than Prey. It's way more my type of game than Prey. But you need to buy Prey ($45AU) and then also buy Mooncrash ($30AU) if you just want Mooncrash. Oh well.
I'm not being stupid when I say that him saying "rouge-lite" is wrong, right? It should be "rouge-like" because it's like Rouge, or am I missing something here?
No, a "Rogue-Lite" is a sub-sub-genre. Roguelikes have hard resets between runs, taking their cues from the ascii dungeon crawler game "Rogue." Rogue lites are a more recent trend popularized by "Rogue Legacy," where even though death is permanent, every run is likely to make future runs a little easier.
There are probably nitpicks about that definition - some people think that only ascii games are roguelikes to begin with - but that's pretty much what he means. He's complained about the format on Twitter before.
That seems a bit silly, since Rouge-like already means the same, it is like it, it isn't exactly like it though, saying it's somewhat like it but not quite like it so it needs a different work seems pedantic to me, but whatever, if you really feel the need to have a different word for it, who am I to judge.
Ironic while spelling it "rouge" every time instead of "rogue".
While rogue-like is sometimes used to refer both to the more traditional ascii aesthetic turn based perma death dungeon crawlers with complex systems, and also to the games that are a combination of some other genre with rogue-like elements, those two groups are quite clearly distinct. Sure there's some overlap, but if you look at a few games of both kinds it's clear that those are two separate clusters, so there are two names, that's all there is to it.
Oh, the fanbase being overly pedantic thing is actually totally true though. You should look up something called 'the Berlin interpretation'.
It has been a long time since a you tube video successfully sold me on a video game. I would have liked to see an affiliate link, but totally appreciate many reasons that could explain it not being there.
Let's actually goo new videoo
Is this the moon based DLC we have been waiting for?
Time to play Prey I guess...
Do you play paradox games'
Suuuuper casually. Most of my experience with them is the Crusader Kings run we did on Spoiler Warning.
@@ErrantSignal Wait what... didn't even notice that, I'll check it out
I'd be really interested to see your reaction to their full slate of games: where they sometimes use the same systems but with completely different details and focuses, how they present history (or tropes of the medium for Stellaris) without direct judgement in some cases, but give you the tools to make that judgement yourself, how they dramatically alter the core gameplay of their games over time, etc. There's a lot to talk about, the main problem would be having to play several versions of several games several times, each for at least a dozen hours. And then there's buying all that dlc...